AdvancedMD Review

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After conducting our 2019 research and analysis of practice management software, we recommend AdvancedMD as the best all-in-one practice management software.

We chose AdvancedMD from a pool of dozens of practice management software programs. To learn about our full methodology and for a more comprehensive list of practice management solutions, see Business News Daily's best picks.

Practice management software does exactly what the name suggests: It helps your office staff run your practice's billing, scheduling and big-picture financials. Naturally, practice management software plays a critical role in keeping your practice running efficiently and profitably, so you can't afford to make the wrong choice. Whichever system you choose, you need to make sure it is easy for your staff to learn and use, communicates with your electronic health records (EHR) software, and has all the features necessary for your billing and scheduling needs.

Editor's note: Looking for practice management software for your medical practice? If you're looking for information to help you choose the one that's right for you, use the questionnaire below to have our sister site, BuyerZone, provide you with information from a variety of vendors for free.

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Our best pick for all-in-one practice management software that comes with a seamlessly integrated EHR is AdvancedMD. AdvancedMD offers full-featured practice management software and a top-of-the-line electronic medical record (EMR) system, ensuring that your practice's healthcare IT suite is unified and effective. While it is on the expensive side of the price range in our review, AdvancedMD is well worth it for the software, integrations and implementation support you can expect from the company. It is also one of the only companies to guarantee in writing a 95 percent first-pass claims rate in billing, meaning 95 percent of submitted claims will successfully go through on the first submission.

Features

AdvancedMD includes all the most important features we looked for in practice management software. The major areas of functionality can be broken down into billing features and scheduling features. Here's a look at what AdvancedMD's software has to offer.

Billing

The billing tools in practice management software help your team effectively submit claims to payers and follow up on denials. Ideally, your practice management software should offer features to boost the number of claims accepted on the first pass and reduce the time claims spend in accounts receivable. Ultimately, this should translate to getting paid more, more quickly, with less effort. These are the billing features AdvancedMD offers to that purpose.

Patient insurance eligibility verification: This allows staff to confirm a patient's insurance eligibility prior to their appointment, speeding up intake and streamlining the process.

Accounts Receivable Control Center: This is where staff can manage co-payment collections and track denials.

Claims management: The software has a central dashboard that provides an overview of the entire billing process, from charge capture to full reimbursement.

Reporting and benchmarking: Your staff can track and monitor financials compared to benchmarks and historic trends.

Scheduling

The scheduling side of practice management software makes it easy to set appointments with patients, assign them to a provider and manage daily workflows. Scheduling tools should also reduce no-shows by sending out reminders, ideally automating that process so your staff can focus on other things. Streamlining schedules and helping providers and staff alike stay on task boosts efficiency and cuts costs. AdvancedMD does both with these scheduling features.

Appointment reminders: Text and email appointment reminders notify patients when a visit is scheduled, reducing no-shows while allowing your staff to focus on other tasks.

Schedule snapshot: The software provides an overview of daily appointment counts for each provider and location.

Quick-look summary: You can hover over an appointment to see patient contact info, clinical notes, the type of appointment and the anticipated duration of the visit.

Quick-add functions: One-click search finds available time slots and appointment histories, and users can quickly schedule new appointments.

Waitlist management: You can set triggers to automatically fill open time slots, as well as manually manage waitlists.

Patient room tracking: This helps you maximize staff and facility utilization, cutting down on wait times and boosting productivity.

Pricing

AdvancedMD typically offers an integrated EHR and practice management system, but it is also possible to purchase stand-alone practice management software from the company if you currently have an EHR that you are happy with. Naturally, pricing is lower for stand-alone practice management software than for an integrated system. Pricing may also depend on whether you select options such as electronic faxing, prescription of controlled substances and advanced reporting. Those add-on prices are listed below.

For our hypothetical, soon-to-open general medical practice of three providers with an unknown number of claims each month, AdvancedMD provided us with ballpark quotes for both a stand-alone practice management solution and an integrated EHR and practice management system.

Implementation and Training

AdvancedMD maintains implementation packages, which are an additional cost to the monthly subscription. That means you'll have to make a significant investment in getting the system up and running, especially if you purchase the integrated practice management software with the EHR system. However, this is common within the industry, and AdvancedMD gives its clients options in service level and pricing for implementation. These are the three tiers of implementation:

Tier 1 – Limited ($1,995): This package includes application configuration and two hours of product training. The practice is responsible for the configuration review and project management. This option is intended for a small practice with experienced staff members who will be content to rely heavily on webinar training.

Tier 2 – Standard ($2,995): This tier builds on the first by adding two more hours of training and shifting project management and configuration review responsibilities to the company. It also includes a training tracker, a comprehensive video training library, help materials, an onboarding webinar series, an implementation phone line, a partner interface collaboration, post-utilization follow-ups and a dedicated implementation consultant.

Tier 3 – Comprehensive ($3,995): The final package builds on the second tier by adding full application configuration and review, as well as 12 hours of product training. This is recommended for practices implementing a fully custom system that need time to learn how to navigate the software and integrate it into their daily operations.

AdvancedMD already maintains integrations with important institutions, including labs like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp. However, if your preferred labs, pharmacies and hospitals are not automatically able to communicate with your AdvancedMD EHR, the company will extend APIs to do so during the implementation process, provided all parties involved are willing. As long as you get buy-in from your desired hospital, pharmacy or lab, AdvancedMD is willing to integrate its system to communicate with others not automatically supported.

Implementation and training takes 8-11 weeks from the time AdvancedMD receives a practice's insurance credentials, so it's important to allot the proper amount of time before the go-live date to ensure the system is fully functional and your staff adequately trained.

Customer Service

Our customer service experience with AdvancedMD was very good. We immediately connected with a representative who walked us through the features in the practice management program. He also explained what we could expect in implementation, though he did not disclose at first that implementation costs extra. We received that information later in additional materials. However, we did explain that we were not interested in buying and implementing a solution immediately, and we were otherwise satisfied with the customer service we received. At no time did the representative try to make a hard sell or push us to make any kind of commitment. He quickly followed up after the call with his contact information and some additional details.

Limitations

AdvancedMD's biggest limitation is its cost. While it is not the most expensive solution on the market, it is on the high end of the price range for companies we reviewed. It also charges add-on fees for several features that other systems include in the original subscription cost. Still, if your practice can afford AdvancedMD, it is reliable and comes along with a great deal of implementation and technical support, as well as excellent customer service. While the price might be prohibitive to some, the software does live up to its costs.

Editor's note: Looking for practice management software for your medical practice? If you're looking for information to help you choose the one that's right for you, use the questionnaire below to have our sister site, BuyerZone, provide you with information from a variety of vendors for free.

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Adam C. Uzialko

Adam C. Uzialko, a New Jersey native, graduated from Rutgers University in 2014 with a degree in Political Science and Journalism & Media Studies. In addition to his full-time position at Business News Daily and Business.com, Adam freelances for a variety of outlets. An indispensable ally of the feline race, Adam is owned by four lovely cats.